Game Development Learning Guides

Incremental games are fascinating and perplexing. Marked by minimal player agency and periods of inactivity, they seem to defy conventional logic about good game design, and yet nonetheless have attracted a substantial player base. In this series, we examine them in more detail, and explore why that is.

Shader programming sometimes comes off as an enigmatic black magic and is often misunderstood. There are lots of code samples out there that show you how to create incredible effects, but offer little or no explanation. This guide aims to bridge that gap. I'll focus more on the basics of writing and understanding shader code, so you can easily tweak, combine, or write your own from scratch!

In this two-part series, I will be showing you how to create the classic game of hangman. This version comes with a surprise ending, however. If you win the game the hangman does a happy dance. Along the way, you will learn about Corona's drawing API, scene management, dispatching custom events, how to utilize a sprite sheet, and how to use modules to emulate classes in the Lua programming language.

In this three-part series, I will be showing you how to create a game inspired by Space Invaders. Along the way, you'll learn about Corona's scene management functionality, timers, moving a character, the built-in physics engine, and how to use modules to emulate classes in the Lua programming language.

Puzzle games often take place on a grid containing tiles that have behaviors and properties, and react to rules and inputs. In this series, Matthias Zarzecki shows you how to build a simple, basic version of the classic game Minesweeper—the perfect example to start from when creating your own puzzle games.